


You'll Be Okay

by GaHoolianGirl



Series: The Technical Specifications of Love [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alien Technology, And less the events themselves, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, But it's mainly about how Geordi Feels about those events, Data Has Android Emotions, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, I only go into a bit of detail it's nonsense but not outrageous by Trek standards, Light Angst, Like specifically some weird android paralysis, Like the set up and the resolution of that are integral, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other, Paralysis, Some Plot, Technobabble, This starts as angst but ends as fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26674741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaHoolianGirl/pseuds/GaHoolianGirl
Summary: “I... I...”why am I at a loss for words talking to someone who can’t even hear me?“Data, I- There are some things I need to say. While you’re still- I need to say them now.”“I love you, Data. Yes, like a friend. You’re first and foremost my best friend, and what I’m going to say won’t change that in the slightest,” he emphasized his last sentence, unsure of why he was being so careful in his word choice.Maybe I just want it to feel like he can hear me...He gripped the edge of the table, focusing on the cool metal against his hands, “But I love you in a different way, too.”Some alien tech renders Data paralyzed; alive, but unable to move or respond to anything. Afraid he'll never have another chance, Geordi confesses his feelings to him in that state. But it turns out Data can hear him, and once he recovers, has an answer to give.
Relationships: Data/Geordi La Forge
Series: The Technical Specifications of Love [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970848
Comments: 16
Kudos: 117





	You'll Be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Helloooooooooo there, not a lot of stuff I have to say about this one. I put a bit more effort than I usually do into the set up of this one, which was fun. Enjoy!

“Damn!”

Geordi tossed the tool aside, not particularly caring where it ended up. Nothing he did was working! He had tried every trick he knew, very option, everything he had at his disposal. Nothing was _wrong_ with Data.

Yet he lay there, almost completely unmoving.

With an angry groan, he moved to sit in a chair on the far side of the room, tempted to take his visor off so he didn’t have to see the frightfully still body of his friend. He had seen Data deactivated before; this was different. By all his metrics, Data was still _on._ None of his internal functions had ceased, his positronic brain firing like it always did. But he didn’t reply to any external stimuli, even his breathing/internal cooling mechanism that appeared to be breathing was only operating at its minimum level. The best word Geordi had to describe Data’s condition was _full body_ _paralysis._

_Dammit!_ the engineer thought to himself, banging his tightly balled fist against the wall as hard as he could, ignoring the pain it caused, _Damn ancient technology. Damn xenoarchaeologists doing their jobs. Damn myself for not being able to help Data!_

If only they hadn’t come to this forsaken planet to help the research team repair their computers after an electrical storm had shorted them out. If only they hadn’t somehow awakened a piece of tech from the society that had lived here millennia ago that sent out a pulse that knocked Data flat (along with all the computers they were fixing, but who cared about that? Years of study, gone? Well, years of _study, love, and experience_ would be lost with Data!).

He sighed, standing back up to stretch in an effort to relieve at least a little of the tension in his body. It wasn’t fair of him to get angry at people who had no idea what would happen. All the signs pointed to the conclusion that the people who had lived here hadn’t become very technologically advanced, but it turned out that the opposite was true- they were so advanced that they had disguised their tech to look like wood and stone, and to be nearly undetectable by simple scanners. When the xenoarchaeologists had requested their assistance, the captain, ever the archaeology enthusiast, had asked Geordi not only to fix their computers, but enhance them if allowed. They had been given the go-ahead, and the more powerful forward dissipation scanners he had installed tripped a long dormant defense system.

So really, it was his fault.

Dr. Roxanne, the team leader, had felt so bad that she offered to let him use their labs to try and detect what had gone wrong once their systems came back online. He had wanted to refuse, to say he could do his job better on the ship but just as he tried, he had received a message saying that the pulse was strong enough to hit the _Enterprise,_ and the transporter beam would be down for a few hours, at least.

Of course.

So here he was, in a laboratory primarily designed to date and analyze ancient artifacts, separated from the ship and alone with his paralyzed android best friend.

Great.

“Data...” he said quietly, walking back over to the cleared off table he was laid on. Geordi let himself look over the length of Data’s body, wishing more desperately than he ever had for his VISOR to be _wrong_ somehow, to not see the glow he had come to love be so faint; it was just a flicker now, a hollow reminder of Data’s barely alive state.

“I hate this. Not being able to help you. It must be terrifying, being alive and aware of your own consciousness, but not anything going on around you,” he laughed, but it was a hollow and bitter sound. It made him think of Data’s own attempts at the act- they weren’t _good,_ but they were _earnest,_ even if he didn’t get the joke, he wanted to laugh with everyone else, “Of course, you’d tell me you can’t feel ‘terror’, but I just don’t buy that, buddy. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again; you do feel, in your own way.”

Usually, this conversation ended with Data continuing to argue the opposite, or agreeing to disagree.

Now his words were just met with silence.

Geordi rested his hip against the table, braving one hand to run his knuckles down Data’s cheek. His skin was cold, but not in the way a dead or dying human’s would be. It was hard to describe the sensation, even for a man who had spent the first five or six years of his life relying on his sense of touch as one of his only means of interacting with the world. It felt- it felt almost like touching a _doll_ that hadn’t been played with in quite awhile.

He grit his teeth at the thought, retracting his hand.

“I... I...” _why am I at a loss for words talking to someone who can’t even hear me?_ “Data, I- There are some things I need to say. While you’re still- I need to say them now.”

He shut his mouth just after he opened it trying to continue. He couldn’t do this looking at Data. With a sigh, he took his visor off, gently laying it beside the android’s head. The dissipation of the low level headache he had been dealing with made it easier to talk, as well as did not having to deal with _looking_ at who he was speaking to.

“I love you, Data. Yes, like a friend. You’re first and foremost my best friend, and what I’m going to say won’t change that in the slightest,” he emphasized his last sentence, unsure of why he was being so careful in his word choice. _Maybe I just want it to feel like he can hear me..._ He gripped the edge of the table, focusing on the cool metal against his hands, “But I love you in a different way, too.”

“I’ve heard you, ya’ know, say you want to get married one day. Who knows, you could have just meant it to mean you thought it’d be a way to round out your human experience. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. But when I heard it I got so damn excited, that one day... when you felt more confident in your emotions... when I felt more confident in _myself,_ that we could...”

Another sour laugh.

“Even now I can’t just spit it out! Ha!”

He trailed his hand against the table to find his VISOR to pick it up, but didn’t put it back over his eyes, “Okay. Here goes nothing. Just going to say it, put this back on, and hail the ship, see when I can get us back there. Maybe... maybe on the _Enterprise,_ there’s something I can do. I can’t give up yet. I _won’t_ give up on you yet, Data.”

With a deep breath, he hovered the device in front of his face, just barely not clicking it into place. He could feel a slight pull from the connectors trying to come together, but it was weak.

“I love you. Romantically. And I hope you do too, or will, now, or maybe someday. It’s okay if you never do, too, because I’ll always be there for you anyway.”

He slotted his VISOR back on, and his vision was flooded with information.

Data hadn’t moved a muscle.

Geordi sighed, tapping his combadge.

“Commander La Forge to _Enterprise,_ what’s the schedule on the transporters?”

The transporter chief’s voice crackled to life, _“Should be operational in about half an hour sir.”_

“Alright; when the time comes, I want you to beam me and Data directly to engineering.”

_“Aye, sir.”_

He can’t quit, not now. Down here he only had basic tools, but up there he had access to state of the art technology, sensors and scanners and anything else he could possibly need. 

He _would_ fix Data, his fellow officer, his friend, and the person he loved more than anyone else.

With the brief window of time he had before beam up, he started to gather everything he had brought with him, feeling a flush of embarrassment wash over him as he picked up the tools he had tossed all over the place, grateful he had been alone in here. The chief engineer of Starfleet’s flagship being seen throwing a tantrum would not have been the best thing for his reputation. Lastly, he hooked his tricorder back onto his belt-

-his tricorder.

Tricorder.

Wait wait wait wait wait waitwaitwaitwait-

He had been so focused on Data, what if what he was looking for was-

Flipping the device open so fast he nearly dropped it, he adjusted the sensor settings to scan for the frequencies of the pulse emitted earlier based on the preliminary readings of the computers before they shorted, and eliminated all of the normal frequencies associated with Data.

_Click, beep, click, beep..._

It took only seconds, but it felt like a lifetime to Geordi, who awaited its results with an impatience like never before.

“Bingo!” he shouted to himself, fist flying in the air before it swung down to hit his combadge again, “Transporters?”

 _“Sir?”_ a very confused voice replied, _“They just came back online-”_

“Beam us up now!”

He could hear some confused murmuring on the other end, but he couldn’t have cared less.

_“...Aye sir._

Leaning down, he placed a gentle hand on Data’s arm, smiling for the first time since before they arrived on the planet, “You’re going to be okay.”

He had no idea if he was saying it to himself or Data, but it didn’t matter, because in a matter of seconds, they were gone.

* * *

Geordi’s theory had been correct. 

There was another aspect to the photonic resonance pulse the device had emitted; nanites that were smaller than microscopic were delivered through the blast as well. Perhaps in an ancient war these people had fought against another race that had achieved the creation of artificial life, because they were harmful _exclusively_ to Data. They died immediately upon entering an organic body, and didn’t have that long of a lifespan inside of an ordinary computer either, but some part of a tronic matrix was hospitable to them. 

That was not all, however.

The job they had set out to do was continually send the pulse between each other, essentially keeping Data’s positronic matrix in a form of stasis- they must not have wanted to _destroy_ their android enemies, but _capture_ them. He was damn lucky that was the case.

...but uncovering the details of that wasn’t Geordi’s job. That was up to the xenoarchaeologists and xenoathropologists or whoever it was who specialized in that area. What _he_ had to do was find a way to make them stop whatever it was they were doing.

Turns out that with the right tools, what he had been dreading was frightfully easy. An antiphoton dissipation emitter was enough to ‘stun’ them and give him enough time to do a full resonance sweep of Data’s brain and eradicate them.

Now, all that was left to do was wait for Data to wake up.

Rebooting him from that state was hard on his systems, so Geordi had no idea if it would take a few minutes or a few hours. Nonetheless, he took the moment to finally, _finally_ relax. It felt like he had been holding his breath for hours, anxiety coalescing into a very real pain in his chest. When he let it go, the ache of _almost_ losing Data was still there, but it was far less soul crushing now. Too overwhelmed to go get a chair, he leaned back against the wall of the lab, sliding down onto the floor with a soft _thud._

Data was going to be okay.

_Data was going to be okay._

While he should just be focused on his friend’s well being, the thought of _I_ _f I confessed before, could I do it again?_ entered his mind unbidden. He shooed it away, _Now is not the time._

“Geordi?”

“Data!”

He sprung up into a standing position and scrambled over to his friend, who was sitting up on the work table looking as confused as he ever was, “I am in control of my cognitive and motor functions once again.”

“Yeah, you are. It was touch and go for a while but we think you should be all set, now."

“I see. What exactly occurred down on the planet? The last active memory file I have on record is the moment the photon resonance blast affected my systems. There are some other events that I have vague impressions of, but I am unable to properly process those at this time.”

Geordi’s heartbeat sped up at the implication that Data remembered _anything_ that happened to him after he was paralyzed, but quickly rationalized that he said he only had ideas of what went on; for all he might ever know, Geordi was just talking to himself about literally anything. Armed with that justification, he relayed the events as he knew them to the attentive android, who nodded along to his explanation courteously.

It made the engineer want to cry.

Data, the kind, polite, thoughtful _Data_ was here, he would be fine. 

Geordi didn’t let him down.

After he was finished, Data tilted his head in his characteristic motion, “I see. It was fortunate that it was a non lethal method of capture.”

“I’d say so!” Geordi barked out, an edge of bitterness creeping into his tone, which he instantly regretted, “Sorry, Data. It was just... a stressful time.”

“You do not need to apologize to me, Geordi. I understand the position you were in was most frustrating. I am-” he paused, suddenly going still for exactly five seconds, before continuing his sentence like nothing had happened, “-grateful that you were ultimately successful.”

“So am I, buddy. Now come on, we ought to go tell the captain-”

“Geordi?”

“Hm, what is it?”

Data’s cleared his throat; it wasn’t very convincing (very adorable, however) but his message got across all the same, “I am of the understanding that you will not have a favorable reaction to what I am about to tell you, so the appropriate course of action would be for me to recommend you sit down.”

Geordi’s eyebrows hit the ceiling, getting a little nervous at the idea of Data having some out of the blue bad news for him, but considering his friend’s likely (even if he’ll never admit it) harrowing experience, he obliged, pulling the chair from the work desk, place it over by the table, and sitting.

“As you have yourself noted, all of my essential functions were operable during my period of stasis. This included my formation of memories. However, I was not able to immediately process the auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, kinaesthetic-” 

“Data.”

“-I was not able to immediately process all the sensory inputs I was experiencing, but they were stored directly into my memory banks. During your explanation, I dedicated my background processes to accessing these files and interpreting them. This, as you may have guessed, includes what you told me when you presumed I would not hear you. I did not ‘hear’ it as such, but I am now aware of it. I apologize.”

...

....

.......

A long silence filled the air, Geordi unable to speak at this revelation. Data knew. _He knew. He knew about Geordi’s feelings for him._

“I- Data I-”

“Before you proceed, allow me to express my response to your feelings, as I have come to believe that a lack of clarity is a common cause for detrimental misunderstandings, which are best avoided. To address your initial concern that I would consider your romantic feelings for me as the loss of our friendship, I understand that this is not the case. Both of us have remained productive coworkers with individuals who we have had complicated romantic entanglements with before. On the issue of my desire to experience marriage, yes, at that time it was primarily said as a point of curiosity, as well out of personal interest in proving that I have as much to provide as an organic being in a relationship. But that does not mean I anticipate it to be an entirely transactional affair. This connects to my last point.”

Data stopped for an intake of breath, which Geordi knew was actually for _his_ benefit, not Data’s.

“As to the status of my feelings towards yourself... that is a line of thought I had been considering for some amount of time, myself. More specifically, for three months, four days, ten hours, forty minutes, and eight seconds. I was unable to come to a satisfactory conclusion, but after discussing the matter with Counselor Troi in confidence, it was determined that because of me being who and what I am, the fact that it is something I had chosen to consider of my own volition was to be considered proof in of itself that initiating a romantic relationship with you is something worth pursuing. I was waiting for, as you would say, ‘the right moment’, to communicate this to you. When I became aware of your reciprocal desires, the ‘right moment’ became _this_ moment.”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes, anything else I have to say I have determined would be considered ancillary and can be revisited at a later date.”

Geordi’s head was spinning. Just minutes ago, Data woke up from a traumatic experience, if not for him then for _Geordi,_ but now he was informing him that he had not only heard his best friend confess his love, but wanted to _act_ on it?

It was... a lot.

He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling before at the android, whose face was, _of course,_ in its standard neutral expression. He couldn’t throw Geordi a bone now or anything... no sir...

“Let me get this straight. You want to be in a relationship? With me?”

A nod, quick and decisive, “That is correct.”

“You- You love me?”

He was fishing for something he’d never hear, just setting himself up for heartbreak. But he.. he couldn’t...

“For what I have to come to define as love, I do. I could not say I comprehend or experience the _feeling_ of love, as you would, but what I have determined love is for myself is what I apply to you. My quality of life would significantly drop without you in it. When I have difficulty with an aspect of humanity, my first choice for assistance is always yourself, even though there are many qualified individuals on the ship. To use an idiom that I have constructed for myself-”

 _He’s proud of himself, the bastard!_ Geordi thought with growing elation.

“-‘You complete my circuits’. My existence as an individual is what I value most, and you are integral to that. And in regards to physical romantic contact, the simulations I have run in my head where I engage in those with you are 90 percent of the time more pleasurable then when pictured or experienced with others.”

“Data... if this is something you want, well, you know how I feel about it.”

“That is unsatisfactory. For us to maintain open communication it is necessary that you explicitly inform me on how you would like to proceed.”

 _That sounds suspiciously like_ **_“I want to hear you say it_** _,”_ _but I’ll let him off the hook this time._

With a broad smile, Geordi stood up and walked over to Data, grabbing one of his hands and squeezing it, enjoying the renewed warmth of his artificial skin, “Alright then, Data. I want to be in a relationship with you, because I love you. And, in the spirit of ‘open communication,’” he laughed, bright, full, _joyful,_ “May I kiss you?”

Now he was absolutely _convinced_ thatData was pleased with himself as he nodded, lips quirking up in that famous “not quite a smile” of his, ”Certainly.”

Leaning in, their mouths met in a brief, chaste embrace, moreso a brush of lips than anything else. But it was, in Geordi’s estimation, the best kiss he’s ever had, “So, how was that?”

Data tilted his head, raising a hand to hold Geordi's cheek, in a stiff and calculated, but still sweet and appreciated, gesture, “My simulations are correct. That is a more enjoyable experience than the others. However, to reach a proper conclusion we must continue to test it. I only have one test subject, but that should be more than sufficient.”

Laughing at what he considered Data’s first not entirely unfunny joke, Geordi kissed him again. And again. And again.

After all, their tests should be thorough, and they have all the time in the world.•

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I reused a bit from one of my other daforge fics, but I did expand it here and also... it's just a good bit haha. I'm also a touch worried about the technobabble, using so much fake science is frustrating lol. Let me know what you thought!


End file.
